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Saturday, September 27, 2014

Beheadings American Style

September 27, 2014
Another day, another beheading in the news. While we all recoil in horror at the brutality of the ISIS mode of attention getting, I have to cringe a bit when I think about our own usage of this barbaric tactic.

In the early 1860s, Apache chief Mangas Coloradas, who had come in under a flag of truce, was subsequently tortured and killed by U.S. troops. Then, he was beheaded, and his skull sent back east "for study."

Impressive Mangas
Mr. Coloradas supposedly stood six feet four, which means he towered over everyone in the Southwest (Geronimo and Billy the Kid were both 5' 7") with the possible exception of Sheriff Bob Paul and Pat Garret (both also stood 6' 4").

Mangas' daughter married Cochise. An amazing guy and a formidable fighter. Here is the order given to the soldiers at the fort where Mangas went under a flag of truce:

"Men, that old murderer has got away from every soldier command and has left a trail of blood for 500 miles on the old stage line. I want him dead tomorrow morning. Do you understand? I want him dead."
—Brigadier General Joseph Rodman West

In the early 1870s, soldiers under General Crook, battling Apaches who would not stay on the reservation, instituted a bounty on Apache heads. Paul Andrew Hutton, who is still working on his epic Apache book which should be out next year, will write a cover story for us on, what he calls, "The Severed Heads Campaign." The moral here is that ISIS still has a ways to go to catch up to our own brutality.

About Me

Bob Boze Bell's work has appeared in Arizona Highways, Playboy, National Lampoon, the Arizona Republic and True West magazine.
For ten years (2002-20012) he did a video version of True West Moments which ran on the Westerns Channel.
BBB can currently be seen on the series "Gunslingers" which runs on the American Heroes Channel.
Triple B is also the President and executive editor of True West magazine, positions he has held since 1999.
He has written a dozen books on Old West characters like Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Wild Bill Hickok and a three-part series (so far) on Classic Gunfights which appear in True West. These popular, heavily illustrated books have sold over 90,000 copies, so far.
In 2014 he published a visual memoir of growing up on Route 66 called "The 66 Kid," and he is currently working on a bio of Geronimo.
As for retirement, BBB says, "Work is only work if you'd rather be someplace else. And I'm exactly where I want to be."